A poorly written weak effort
This book seems to be more a collection of random events leading up to and including WWII. We hear about the Japanese war in China, Lindbergh's flight over the Atlantic, Mitchell's campaign for air power and sinking of the captured German battleship Ostfriesland (in grossly simple terms and lacking a great many facts), the brutal training of Japanese army enlisted personal and some stories from the home front in Japan. Not to mention a brief description of the American-Philippines war, with stories of American brutality thrown in for good measure. Then we cover the bombing campaign against Japan and the implications of moral equivalency that the Japanese attorcities during WWII were some how comparable and even rational.
While others have criticized his attempts and "revisionist history", my main complaint is simply that the book jumps from narrative to narrative, occasionally filling in the blanks of the fliers who were captured and executed at Chi-Chi-Jima. It's as if Bradley had a word quota for this second book and he pulled from every angle he could to fill the pages.
I had trouble finishing the book and had to force myself to read it to the end. Overall a very poor effort after his first book.
Flyboys review
I am a fan of true WWII stories about the sacrifices that generation made and fully appreciate all they did. This book though is way too graphic for me. I know war is hell but honestly I had to stop reading it and am haunted by what I learned about the U.S and our history that I did not know about such as some of the Indian Massacres and how we started the war in Mexico and the war in the Philippines. I am in the military and have been in light combat in Desert Storm but of course the two wars cannot be compared. War is War. I had my experience but it was noting like the horrors these guys went through. I tried skipping a few chapters to read just about the flying but the book kept reverting back to Japanese decapitating heads and tons of other gory stuff. My favorite book and autobiography is BA BA BLACK SHEEP the Pappy Boyington story. Just good history with a mild dash of gore.
an extraordinary story
I was pleasantly surprised by how excellent this book is.
Having read James Bradley's first book, Flags of Our Fathers, I was curious to read his follow-up. But Flags is such a compelling personal story - a journey to discover what happened to his father in World War Two - that I wasn't entirely confident he could achieve the same with a subject he was less directly connected to. I needn't have worried. Flyboys is not only well-researched and truly revelatory. It's also an unusually well-balanced and sensitive attempt to get to grips with the horrors of war.
Most of us are aware of the particularly gruesome nature of the war in the Pacific. But Flyboys delves into a previously untold tale that descends into levels of atrocity and barbarism that are hard to comprehend. And this is where Bradley's writing talent really comes to the fore. He doesn't just dig up the facts and tell the story remarkably clearly. He goes much further, placing the brutality in some sort of context. It's the insight and background he places the events within that takes this book to a higher level, giving the reader a grasp and understanding of otherwise incomprehensible inhumanity.
Some reveiwers have criticised Flyboys as unpatriotic - mainly for taking the trouble to offer a Japanese perspective on the Pacific conflict. But Bradley's credentials are hard to refute. His father, after all, was one of the flag-raisers on Iwo Jima; yet he has also travelled and studied extensively in Japan, acquiring an uncommon grasp of Japanese language, culture and history. And it's this uniquely balanced sensibility that takes Flyboys well beyond the mere unearthing of a harrowing story that it might otherwise have been.
If I have one criticism of Flyboys it's that the author offers so much context and detail that the book sometimes drifts away from its core subject into much wider considerations about World War Two, it's causes, consequences and moral dilemmas. But then again this is not really a fault - it's an integral part of what makes this one of the best books about war you will ever read.
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